Strength
by shad2007
Summary: Sometimes all that is needed is a shift in perception.    AN: Bugger.  Evidently I have yet to learn how to make the format here space the way I want it.  My apologies for any difficulties in reading without the breaks that were in the original upload


He is watching me again. There is no mistaking the heated weight of those blue eyes on me, tracking my every move, every word. Musn't look at him, stay focused, ignore him. I keep my eyes on Aizen as I force myself to listen to yet another never-ending "meeting", the sole purpose of which seems to be to allow Aizen to hear his own voice and force us to partake of that disgusting tea. I school my features to remain calm, still, unmoving. No one can see the curling of my toes within my boots, however, the only fidget I allow myself and a necessary one at that - the weight of that stare makes me want to jump across the table and do...something...to make those eyes close.

Finally the meeting is over and I can leave the room. I wait a moment to allow the others to leave first and thereby decrease my chance of running into him in the hall. When I do rise and move for the door, I find my path blocked as soon as I step through. The muscular form before me makes my toes curl again as I stop and slowly raise my gaze to his.

"Move, trash." Deadpan, my voice as bored as I can make it, I spit the words and wait for him to step away as he usually does. Only this time, he doesn't.

"Ulquiorra..." He draws out my name softly, making it sound so much more coming from his tongue. He used to say it with a snarl, as if the word tasted bad in his mouth, but this time, it's different. If I didn't know how much he hated me, it would almost sound sweet with this new, soft intonation.

His eyes are so intense, so blue. Everything about him exudes a vitality that is severely lacking here in this white place. The wild shock of hair, the reckless feline grace of his movements, even the almost defiant way he left his hollow hole exposed beneath his open jacket. The slow arc of one eyebrow reminds me that several minutes of silence have passed between us since he said my name.

I force myself to remain expressionless, squeezing just a shade more ice into my tone as I repeat myself.

"Move, trash...or I will move you."

He simply smirks, a look in his eyes as he holds my gaze as if he knows something I do not. Then without a word, he slowly steps back and allows me past.

I move sedately, keeping my pace deliberate, slow, ignoring the inner clamor to run as fast as I can away from this...this...person who has such a knack for destroying my usual inner calm. I am the Cuatro Espada. I am stronger than he is. He is beneath me. Emotions, especially the ones he seems to stir so effortlessly within me, are a weakness.

I. Am. Not. Weak.

* * *

><p>He continues to watch me. I continue to ignore him. Or, more accurately, I continue to pretend to ignore him. It becomes almost routine for us: he watches me, he shadows me, I insult and ignore him. If the others notice, no one says anything.<p>

His defiance with Aizen costs him his arm. His pain, his rage at his loss is almost more than I can bear. I remain behind my mask of indifference, ignoring him and the others as usual, hissing my normal insults and demanding obedience from those below me. Inside, I am torn. To see him suffer, to see his pain - I do not know how to manage these feelings that rise within me. There is even a night, behind closed doors in my room, where I idly imagine how one might defy Aizen and steal him away from this place. It scares me that those thoughts flit through my mind. I am always in control, always loyal. This..divide in my loyalties is most confusing. I hate the blue-haired piece of trash. It should be pleasing to see him put in his place. I do not understand this desire within me to give comfort to one below me. Nor do I understand why seeing him hurting creates an ache within me.

When I pass him in the hall the next day, I make a point to ridicule his missing limb and subsequent fall from grace. I pretend not to see the almost instantly vanished look of hurt in his eyes and I tell myself for the hundredth time that he is simply trash. Not worthy. I can almost believe the lie in the light of day.

* * *

><p>The mission into the world of the living to retrieve the girl takes me away for a time, and it is a relief to focus on something other than him and these emotions he provokes. Upon my return to Los Noches, her...amazing...ability to make him whole again, to restore him to his normal surly self is something beyond my wildest imaginings.<p>

I am tasked with caring for the human girl, as I had expected to be. I can never thank her for healing him. I tell myself it is simply because I do not wish to see his spirit broken as it was when he was hurt, not because he has become important to me. I cannot allow emotions to surface, to show the weakness of caring for someone. I can, however, make her stay more bearable. No one need know why.

Another meeting, another test of my ability to ignore. He still watches me, but it is different since his arm was restored. He no longer tries to corner me in empty hallways. He no longer speaks to me if he can help it. The once constant feeling of him following me fades into just an unsettling memory. This should be a relief, but instead I find myself feeling...sad? lost? without his former attentions.

The girl chatters endlessly, and I allow it. It seems to give her comfort to talk of those she left behind, those she cares for. She has learned not to ask me questions and so it is not a true conversation we share every night as I make sure her needs are being met and that Aizen's newest pet is comfortable, but I do listen. Slowly, it dawns on me that her strength, the thing that is allowing her to endure being here, is her love for her friends.

This gives me much to think about. I have always considered emotions to be a weakness, a liability. I do my best to ignore the image of blue eyes that fill my head as I consider this. I look back over my memories, from the first time he and I clashed to the first time I became aware of his unprecedented interest in me. I came up with a list of his flaws, from his hotheaded temper to his inability to be discrete. Yet nowhere in my memories could I find an instance where he was truly weak.

That is not entirely true - he is only the Sexta, after all, so he *IS* weaker than I am, but his emotions in many instances seemed to fuel his strength, rather than act as a liability. Even when he lost his arm and his place as Sexta, he used his rage as a shield, refusing to give in to any weakness that would have led to the others attempting to destroy him completely. Whole, that same pride/passion/emotion that so define him made him incandescent among the Espada. He shone amid the white halls, the neverending sameness that makes up Los Noches. He...wait. Incandescent? Shone? I feel my toes curl again within my boots as the direction my thoughts take startle me out of my reverie. Those thoughts, that person - I shake my head and force the thoughts away as I begin preparing another meal for the woman.

* * *

><p>When I bring her her meal, I find her crying, curled on the couch. I ignore it, setting out the food on the small table. When she does not come and sit, I call her.<p>

"Woman. Come eat now."

To my utter shock and (I will be honest) disgust, instead of sitting at the table, she grabs my jacket and presses her wet face to my shoulder, the sobs intensifying. I remain still, hands at my side, waiting for her to stop. Instead, she begins to wail. I clamp tight on my patience and do my best to figure out what her semi-coherent babbling is about. After all, I am charged with taking care of her for Aizen, and if something is wrong, it is my duty to make it right.

As her words sink in, and the meaning comes clear, I know I cannot make this right for her.

It has finally sunken in for her that she is not going home, that she is never leaving this place. That she will never see her friends again. This..display of emotion, this break in her strength finally is not because she will never leave here. She accepts that. It is because she never told her friends how she felt about them. Never told them how they became her family. Never told Ichigo her true feelings for him.

I remain cool, efficiently calming her, making her eat, watching silently as she falls asleep, exhausted. I can't wait for the chance to return to my own rooms and consider this. Her love for them made her strong enough to leave to keep them safe, strong enough to accept she can never go home. That same love is breaking her heart - not because she loves, but because she never let them know they were loved. It makes no sense. This need to let them know is, indeed, a weakness. But the strength the love brings her to endure - I cannot see where that is weak.

My thoughts drift to him, to how I felt when he was injured. To the inexplicable desire to comfort. I wonder if it would make a difference to him, if I vanished tomorrow, to know that I did not despise him? If I told him, what would he do?

These thoughts leave me unsettled, and to escape them, I take to roaming the empty halls. I ignore the part of me that expresses disappointment at not feeling him following me anymore as I wander.

* * *

><p>This time, when the meeting ends, I am the first to leave the room. I move down the hall, and slip into an empty room. The only warning he has as he moves past the doorway is the feel of my hands on his jacket, then he is yanked into the room and the door closed behind him. He immediately drops into a defensive posture, snarling as he realizes it is me.<p>

"What the hell do you want, Cuatro?" He has not said my name since that day so many weeks ago when it fell like honey from his lips. His eyes are guarded, his expression almost blank.

I say nothing, simply stepping into his space and pushing him back against the wall. I stare into his eyes, unblinking, looking for something...anything. I fully expect him to fight back, to push me away, to start swinging with his usual foul temper. He does nothing. Just stands there, eyes locked on my own.

"Grimmjow..." I say it softly, trying to make it flow the way he made my own name sound. I see his brow quirk again, but still he remains silent, standing there like ice. The tension radiating from his still form is palpable and I wonder if he is aware of the way his reiatsu is spiking.

I step closer still, close enough to feel his jacket brush my own as he exhales.

"Grimmj..." The name is never finished, his hands moving to fist themselves in my jacket. Now or never. I press closer, leaning up, and cover his mouth with my own. It is clumsy, awkward, but it shocks him into motionlessness again for a long moment, before he pushes me back, still holding onto my jacket.

For once, those clear blue eyes are unreadable. I have no idea what he sees in my own gaze, but he simply nods and then his mouth captures my own roughly. It surprises me that his mouth is so soft, so agile under my own when so much of him is hard and brash. The kiss gentles as his tongue teases my lips apart..and oh!...that is so much better, this slow slide of tongues, the taste of Aizen's wretched tea faint, barely masking something else, something spicy, something uniquely his own.

He releases me when the need to breathe becomes almost painful. His arms slide around me and something within me shifts. I lean against him, my head on his shoulder, knowing he has observed me often enough to recognize that I am allowing him to see a softness no one else has seen in me. I can feel the tension draining from his lean form as he speaks.

"Mine." He says it softly, almost but not quite a question.

My own voice is firm when I reply.

"Yes."

I am the Cuatra Espada. I am not weak. I have a strength the others do not. Him.


End file.
